This is tough to put out there, but recently I have been experiencing anxiety. Heavy anxiety. I have never really experienced this feeling in this magnitude, and this frequent; worse thing is i'm not sure where it comes from. It's weird what triggers it, and i'm not really sure what does. I'm a research guy; I tried to find out what causes this. I googled anxiety, and read up on it. After reading it, I refuse to believe I have a chemical imbalance, and have to come to a realization it's probably mental. This proves to be more difficult for me to swallow, as I don't see myself as weak-minded. Hell, thinking about my inability to control it right now is creating that feeling of anxiety. Maybe, that's where I need to let go in itself; let go of the negative feelings.

Due to my current situation, I don't have insurance, and realistically I can't afford some therapy sessions. Writing seems to calm my nerves, and take me to another place, where my heart isn't beating incredibly fast, and it slows my breathing. I can feel the symptoms coming on, and I can also detect them fading. Besides; I really don't want someone asking me the text book questions and paying them for it when I can just bite the bullet and work it out myself. but what was interesting was while reading up about anxiety, I found some key signs that point directly at what i'm experiencing. Chest pain- it comes on fast, and is more annoying than painful. The chest pain is also coupled with some back pain between the shoulder blades; which is known to have a direct correlation with stress. Short breaths, and pounding heart. I get that. Loss of focus? Sign me up. And lack of drive to do much. There were many more that I didn't experience, but these definitely happen, and almost all at once.

My conclusion: Stress anxiety. It probably doesn't exist, but I feel like the perfect combo of stress and anxiety go hand in hand, and I feel like the feelings feed off each other. The anxiety feelings stress me out, and i'm anxious over solving my stressed issues. How to combat them, i'm still figuring out. As the feelings take hold, they grow exponentially; compounding on one another until I feel like I want to do nothing but go to sleep. Funny thing is, stress and anxiety have adverse effects on your sleep habits, so you can't sleep off the feelings. here is the weirdest part of all this: some days, I wake up, and go through my day fine. Not a single bout. Life is great, things are fine, nothing gets at me. Others, it's really rough. What changes, I have not the slightest clue. Seems like right now even the smallest hurdle or negative thought can send me there; and i'm not sure why. It's usually 50/50, good/bad days. Bad days aren't THAT bad, but it's impairing my quality of life.

The rest of February and into March is going to be an experimental period for me. I'm going to but my best foot forward to beating this thing, approaching it head on, and doing what I know I can do: Fight back mentally. What ever feelings or thoughts are causing this, it's manufactured by me, so therefore it's only as strong as I make it. Fight back, and I can push myself past this issue, and move on. I've gone 29 years really without this kind of issue; why now, I have no clue. I feel for the people who have experienced this in some form or another; and I sympathize with those who's lives are affected every day by anxiety or stress. I know it's all in how you manage it, and I need to spend some time setting a plan in motion to handle this. Besides; I have MUCH more cooler things to do than to sit and stress about silly stuff.